Leftwich Event Specialists, Inc

I had no idea that planning a wedding would be so complicated and time consuming. The details are endless and coordinating with the numerous vendors is overwhelming. I knew it was time to hire a wedding planner. After searching reviews and getting recommendation, we hired Carla Zuber of Leftwich Event Specialists. She was able to jump in and organize the details with the venue, photographer, florist, lighting, rentals, band and all of the others involved. Carla really listens and helped find ways to create a lovely setting. The guests were truly wowed!
Carla and her team made sure that the linens and florals were perfect and had a great idea on how to present the favors. Her timeline was incredibly detailed and helped everyone involved keep on time, even a few surprise toasts. Carla and her team were very flexible and professional when we asked to change the schedule a bit to handle a special surprise from a guest.
I strongly recommend Carla and the team at Leftwich Events Specialists.

The event was run decently well but Leftwich’s staff were not very friendly.

Wow! My husband and I were lucky enough to have Christopher Lee assigned to us as our day-​of-​event wedding coordinator (through Taste Catering). We met him a little under two months before our wedding day and I wasn’t sure what his role would be exactly. He honestly became the most important person involved! Some words that come to mind when I think of Christopher and Leftwich Event Specialists include responsive, accommodating, thoughtful, polite, kind, creative, punctual, professional, organized, detailed, simply put: AMAZING. Knowing that Christopher was involved in everything allowed my husband and me to relax and enjoy our special day. His presence was never overbearing and he helped keep everything on track with complete grace. This company clearly takes pride in their work. I couldn’t recommend them more! Thank you, Christopher!

These guys will save your life if you’re having an event. They come in, assess the situation quickly, make awesome suggestions from their vast repertoire, find the perfect caterer, staff the event with a low-​key presence, they schlep, they pack up, they follow-​up, they make your life easier. Once, Christopher even baked perfect cupcakes for a last-​minute request that caterer could not accommodate. Really! And the best part, they become your friends. Sam, Richard, Christopher, and all of their crew, are the best. I have hired them to create wonderful events for SFJAZZ and my colleague have, too. They are back on board in ²⁰¹²⁄₁₃ for the 3^rd year with high-​level donor events. I will hire them whenever I have the opportunity.

Christopher Lee was our wedding coordinator and after meeting him the first time we felt very personally connected to him. Chris is energetic, fun and gets things done. We were lucky to work with him — even our guests commented on how awesome our coordinator was. The day of our wedding we were able to relax and take it all in because we knew Chris (and Erin, his assistant) would take care of everything and they did — worth every penny!

Christopher Lee of Leftwich events was our wedding planner/​coordinator. He was organized, knowledgable, and professional. Chris obviously has a love of making couples’ special days perfect, seamless, and beautiful and he definitely has the talent and ability to execute. We were drawn to his desire to really meet and exceed all our needs and expectations. We met with Christopher a few times to talk over logistics and we had several coordinating calls. Christopher went above and beyond to take care of anything we were worried about. He led his team to perfectly set up our décor, coordinate with vendors and the venue for a flawless day, and ensure that we could be at ease and enjoy the most of our day. He even had to deal with a party crasher to which neither my husband and I nor our guests even knew of the problem!
We highly recommend Christopher for his organizational talent that comes with an artistic touch to ensure a beautiful, seamless day.

I should have written this review a few months ago already! We hired Christopher at Leftwich Events to be our wedding planner for our September 2012 wedding and it was one of the best wedding decisions we made! If you are planning your wedding and you think that you don’t need a planner — well, I think you are wrong — because on the big day, it is just so much better to have someone else handle all fo the details — you really need to be able to hand off to someone!
When we first started looking for planners, we met with about 4 or 5 different people. Some felt pushy, or too froo-​froo (like — too much ribbons and bows if you know what I mean) — but when we met Christopher, we liked him immediately and we just felt like he understood us and understood what we were looking for at our wedding. The one catch was that we felt that Christopher was too expensive for us. We told him that he was our favorite though and he then worked with us to tailor his services so that we could lower the price and only get exactly what we wanted.
Christopher came in and started helping out with planning about a month before the wedding. So about a month out, I started handing off lots of different wedding items to him. In the last month, he was there when I met any of my wedding vendors (flowers, venue, music, etc) and he took over communication with many of the vendors. He also developed a detailed day-​of timeline which was great — and this gave me the opportunity to run through all the details with him — so I knew that everything would be taken care of and exactly how I wanted them.
On the weekend of the wedding, Christopher was really amazing! He led the rehearsal the day before the wedding and then on W-​Day, he was there from the very beginning until the very end of the night. Some planners will tell you that they will leave before your wedding is over — but we really wanted a planner who would be there to totally see the night through to the end and handle any clean-​up or tear down issues — and Christopher did just that! Throughout our wedding, all the details were taken care of, and if we were off schedule, Christopher was there to politiely tell us that things were running late — or he would check in about whether we wanted more or less time for something. At the end of the night, he made sure that all of our things were cleaned up and made it back to our hotel — and he even took a few boxes home for us and returned them to me later in the week. I felt calm all night knowing that Christopher had everything under control.
On top of being a very capable planner, Christopher is also just a great guy — kind, sweet, patient, funny — and he thoughtfully listened to all my ideas and concerns. I am so glad that we picked Christopher to be our planner — he was really wonderful to work with and I would highly recommend him to any couple looking for a down to earth planner.

Any time, any event, anything you want to remember, please talk it over with Sam… he will make it FABULOUS and memorable… He cares and he is sweet and so easy to talk to. He’s up to making your dreams come true on budget… but making it just feel so right.

I didn’t want a wedding coordinator, BUT our wedding venue demanded that we have someone the day of.
We happened to know a rock star wedding coordinator, Elizabeth Bainbridge, but she was already booked so she recommended someone she knew. She said, you will love Christopher. That was the understatement of the century.
Christopher came on board one month before. I was at a loss for what he was actually going to do for us, but after that first meeting, I realized I could have never done it without him.
Our entire wedding experience was 200% better because of Christopher Lee. He is a combination of intuition, organization, calm, class, finess and beauty. He is a gorgeous tall former dancer.
He thought of details I had never thought of and put me completely at ease. He even helped my now husband with what he should wear. He was an amazing sounding board. He was present at our engagement dinner and the day of the ceremony and I never stressed because I knew Christopher had our back.
I am thrilled to have met him and hope that I can continue to know him.
If you are looking for an incredible wedding coordinator, look no further than Christopher Lee.

In another life, Chris Lee of Leftwich Event Specialists might have been a designer, a chef, an air traffic controller or a zen buddhist — such are his interests and/​or capabilities — but he has chosen to bring these skills to the art of wedding planning, and passionately so.
Chris’s background in art and design, together with his experience in the retail and catering professions, helped us achieve the look and feel we dreamed about, while keeping us within our truly limited budget. My husband and I are both artists, and our standards for our guests’ experience were very high. At the same time, we had almost no money budgeted for anything other than the venues and dinner. Chris’s seemingly limitless inventive ideas, together with his specific knowledge of local retailers, helped create the experience we envisioned from the beginning. The pictures say it all!
From the very beginning we felt that Chris was personally committed the success of our event. He was excited to hear our vision and offered ideas that we felt showed he truly understood what we were after. Because we came to trust that Chris shared our vision, we felt relaxed and taken care of throughout the entire process. This was no easy feat, as both my husband and I are detail-​oriented and have very particular tastes, but were incredibly busy and didn’t have time to be immersed in every detail.
Chris is not only exceptionally talented, but has a passion for weddings that is contagious. His knowledge of current trends and his relationships with vendors proved invaluable when, for instance, he was able to recommend and personally introduce me to a dress designer that fit my style perfectly. Chris was able to find a stellar pastry chef who could make handmade shortcake when we had a last minute change in the dinner menu, and also found the beautiful peonies that I had dreamed of for the floral arrangements at a surprisingly discounted rate.
I’m sure every wedding has its challenging moments, and ours was no exception. Chris amazed us with his willingness to help and (almost superhuman) availability, so that by the time the big day arrived both my husband and I felt we could call him for just about any wedding-​related problem we were facing. The professional and warm manner in which he assisted and guided our rather large and varied family during the rehearsals and wedding day photo organizing made these moments not only seem easy, but fun as well. The same was true of the ceremony and reception, which both went flawlessly and without any stress for my husband and I, thanks to Chris’s diligence and ability to remain grounded and calm throughout the long day. Contrary to the stereotype of the high-​strung, perfectionist wedding planner, Chris is able to remain focused on a very high standard while radiating a serenity that touches everyone around him.
Chris’s passion for weddings was clear throughout every moment we worked with him, from the care and detail with which he attended to all the individual pieces, to the love and vision he showed in shaping those pieces into a complete experience that was beyond all of our expectations.

I have known the Leftwich team for many years as a colleague, and have seen them produce several events. They are not only very sweet and nice to work with, but they also are pros at what they do. It is really impressive what these guys can pull off and still look like they can do it on their sleep! I can’t say enough of their professional attitude, but their best attribute is that they are super genuine, and really care and love about what they do.

I’ve hired and worked in collaboration with Leftwich at many events over the last several years.
I had the opportunity to see them in action at several small but high end events as well as a large fundraiser gala. LES is always very detailed and thorough in their event planning. No stone goes unturned.
Richard, Christopher, Susanne and the team are always friendly, calm and professional. Their communication skills are unparalleled.
I believe the strength of the team is attention to detail, a friendly and personal approach and experience with many different types of events.
You should hire Leftwich if you want an experienced team who has strong connections many San Francisco vendors, venues and individuals.

Good communication, efficient and friendly service, expertise in the field, creative vision and the know-​how to pull it all off.
I am an Events Manager for a global non-​profit (
) and this month I worked with LES to create a fundraising event for 500 people at the SF Design Center. With LES on the logistic details, I was freed up to focus on the fundraising and internal communications. I have worked with other event consultants in the past and had been frustrated by the lack of communication and organization. That’s why I was so pleased to be working with this team. They kept me updated all along the way with pertinent information – that was all organized in spreadsheets!
Thanks to Richard Okiuye, Christopher Lee and Sam Leftwich– our event was a tremendous success and I didn’t lose any sleep at night worrying that some details would be forgotten – they gave me the confidence to know that all the bases would be covered.

Last month was the second time I have worked with LES to put on an event, and this one was even better than the last one. From planning through to execution, the staff listened to our ideas, brainstormed with us, partnered with quality companies to ensure our event was really top notch.
I can’t say enough good things about their knowledge, dedication to me as a customer, and ability to do a quality event for us. They’re the best!